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Techno Maestro

ST Frequency
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Heady underground electronica and highbrow symphony-hall classical make for unlikely musical bedfellows. Attempts to merge these disparate genres often come off as unremarkable and artistically awkward. Imagine frenetic glowstick twirlers raving it up at a Vivaldi recital and you have a taste for the inappropriateness.

Leave it to Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig to pull a challenging mix off flawlessly. The innovative DJ/producer recently teamed up with France's Les Siècles Orchestra for "Versus," a momentous one-off concert at Cité de la Musique in Paris. Featuring intricate symphonic arrangements of Craig's dancefloor-anthem classics, the 50-minute performance is an homage to the universality of music – and a journey to its chuggy, throbbing heart.

Watch the full concert here, courtesy of Grandcrew.com.

And for a little deeper perspective, be sure and contrast with some of Craig's bouncy, bleepy original cuts: "At Les", "Dominas", and "Technology".

 

Comments

why it works...

Submitted by vivifidal on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 15:52.
there's a very slight percussive vinyl scratchiness and organic hollow breathiness that is evident in Craig's work and the Sieclids grasp of stylistic glide from classical to jazz to avante garde is like a pairing of well aged cheese and bordeaux on the aural pallet. A hint of smoke would bring out the subtle undertones ;-)

MAD SCIENCE!

Submitted by vivifidal on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 16:14.
the maniacal gleam in the conductors eye, such a master of precision chaos...

wakeup and smell the Steinway

Submitted by vivifidal on Tue, 11/25/2008 - 16:53.
if you don't stick it out to the encore you are cheating yourself so much on this. DJ Pianist duet is sublime, you can smell sweat on ivory and sewing machine oil, oak and a bit of ozone wafting. One of my fonder memories was playing Horowitz's Steiny when it toured after his death. Playing keys sometimes makes me feel like the Pacal Votan stele, vibrating the universal control panel with finger wave patterns that are more than just pushing digits, and when well polished a Steinway is obsidian mirror suck you into the void black. It may be my worst material hangup...

very cool, kind of reminds

Submitted by FartMcNoodle on Wed, 11/26/2008 - 10:55.
very cool, kind of reminds me of tangerine dream, definitely a good combo//|:|\\